Are absolute frequencies,relative frequencies,or both effective in reducing cognitive biases?

Biases in probabilistic reasoning are affected by alterations in the presentation of judgment tasks. In our experiments, students made likelihood judgments that an event was produced by various causes. These judgments were made in terms of probability, relative frequency or absolute frequency on a full or a pruned list of causes. When they had little personal experience of the event (causes of death), the pruning bias was smaller with relative frequencies than with absolute frequencies or probabilities. When they had more personal experience of the event (missing a lecture), the bias was less with both types of frequency than with probability but still lowest with relative frequency. We suggest that likelihood information is usually stored as relative frequencies when it has been obtained from public sources but that it is based on event counts when it is derived from personal experience. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The effect of imagining an event on expectations for the event: An interpretation in terms of the availability heuristic

Previous studies have indicated that explaining a hypothetical event makes the event seem more likely through the creation of causal connections. However, such effects could arise through the use of the availability heuristic; that is, subjective likelihood is increased by an event becoming easier to imagine. Two experiments were designed to demonstrate this principle. In Experiment 1, subjects asked to imagine Jimmy Carter winning the presidential election (prior to the election) predicted that he was more likely to win than subjects asked to imagine Gerald Ford winning. In Experiment 2, subjects asked to imagine a good college football season for the previous championship team were more likely to predict a major bowl bid than subjects asked to imagine a bad season, although the effect did not appear in predictions of the season record. In both studies, subjects who were also asked to explain the imaginary event were no different from subjects who only imagined. Several other attributional distortions are interpreted in terms of the availability heuristic.     

The Effects of US Presidential Elections on Work Engagement and Job Performance

We predicted that presidential election results would spill over to influence the work domain. Individuals who voted for the winning candidate were expected to experience increased engagement, whereas individuals who voted for the losing candidate were expected to experience decreased engagement. We tested these predictions within the context of the 2016 US presidential election. Using a sample of 232 working Americans, work engagement and job performance were assessed one week prior to the election, the day after the election, and one week after the election. Contrary to our prediction, individuals who voted for Trump (the winning candidate) did not report increased work engagement, thereby providing no evidence of positive spillover. However, individuals who voted for Clinton (the losing candidate) were less engaged on the day after the election compared to baseline, demonstrating negative spillover. Downstream, work engagement was positively related to job performance. However, these effects were relatively short-lived, as engagement returned to baseline levels within one week following the election. Our results suggest that elections can have important implications for work-related outcomes. From a practical perspective we suggest that to the extent possible it may be prudent to avoid scheduling important work tasks for the days following presidential elections.     

Absolute and Relative Decision Processes in Eyewitness Identification

A prominent and long-standing theory of eyewitness identification decision making distinguishes between absolute judgments, based on the lineup members' match to the witness's memory of the perpetrator, versus relative judgments, based on match values relative to other lineup members. This distinction was implemented in a computational model and simulations showed that the model predicts an accuracy advantage for absolute judgments over relative judgments under some conditions. The present experiment tested this prediction by evaluating the accuracy of witnesses instructed to use relative or absolute rules. Contrary to predictions, the overall analysis did not show an absolute advantage. Additional exploratory analyses showed a relative advantage when the suspect was surrounded by high-similarity foils. These results are consistent with a model that assumes that side-by-side comparisons of lineup members increase diagnostic accuracy by allowing witnesses to give greater weight to more diagnostic features and less weight to less diagnostic features.     

Comparative Optimism and Event Skewness

Comparative judgment biases—wherein a majority of people report being above‐ or below‐average in their abilities, traits, or future events—are a robust phenomenon in psychology. A recent explanation for these biases has focused on people's awareness that many comparative judgment domains form skewed distributions, and, hence, a majority of people can feasibly be above or below average. Indeed, this prior research found that comparative biases for abilities emerged more for skewed (vs. normal) distributions. In the current research, we attempted to (i) conceptually replicate this finding in a comparative likelihood context and (ii) provide evidence of an alternative explanation for the prior results. Replicating prior research, three correlational studies and one experimental study found that event skewness was related to direct comparative likelihood judgments for health events, such that comparative optimism emerged more for events judged or manipulated to come from positively skewed distributions than from negatively skewed distributions. However, event skewness was unrelated to indirect comparisons (absolute self minus absolute other). Moreover, consistent with an egocentric‐processes account, absolute self‐judgments were more predictive of direct comparisons than were absolute other judgments and showed the same association with event skewness as direct comparisons. Implications for explaining and interpreting comparative judgment biases are discussed. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Election Outcome and Tax Compliance: The Role of Political Party Affiliation,Affect Balance,and Trust in Government

The present study examines partisan reactions to presidential election outcomes. Our model investigates the interactive role of political party affiliation on the relationship between identification with the winning party and affect balance. We subsequently examine how tax compliance intentions are influenced by this moderation relationship through affect balance and trust in government. We conducted a quasi-experiment one week prior to the first mass 2016 presidential primary, where 12 of the 50 US states voted to decide which candidates would represent the Republican and Democratic parties in the 2016 US presidential election. Our sample consisted of 205 Republicans and Democrats. We manipulated press releases showing various presidential candidates winning the presidency to examine how matches / mismatches between partisans’ political party affiliation and the party winning the election influence citizens’ overall feelings, beliefs, and intentions. We find election outcomes generate significant overall positive or negative feelings (i.e., affect balance) among partisans, which influences beliefs about trust in government, and subsequently their tax compliance intentions. Political party moderates the relationship between election outcomes and affect balance in such a way that Democrats experience greater overall positive affect balance when their party wins the election compared to Republicans.     

The Mediating Role of Information Search in the Relationship Between Prejudice and Voting Behavior

Evidence on the extent to which prejudice serves as a barrier to black and Latino candidates for office is mixed. Some research has found that black and Latino candidates are disadvantaged in terms of their chances of winning election and that they are evaluated differently by voters, while other findings suggest that this may not be the case. This article examines the effects of racial prejudice on candidate evaluation and voting behavior. It uses a unique experimental design to test for direct effects of prejudice on candidate evaluation and voting behavior, as well as indirect effects of prejudice on these variables via the information that subjects seek out. I find that subjects higher in symbolic racism are less likely to vote “correctly” when their preferences most closely align with a black or Latino candidate and that they rate minority candidates more negatively than their white counterparts. I also find that subjects high in prejudice search for less information about minority candidates and that this less robust information search mediates the relationship between prejudice and candidate evaluation and vote measures. Results also suggest that increased information search may mitigate the effects of prejudice on correct voting.     

Retrospective Frequency Formats Promote Consistent Experience‐Based Bayesian Judgments

On the basis of their experiences with pregnant patients in their practice, obstetrician/gynecologists estimated the posterior probability of Down syndrome given a positive screening result. They also estimated the base rate of Down syndrome in their practice, along with the hit and false alarm rates for the screening test; for each subject, these numbers were combined to calculate a posterior probability to which the initial estimated posterior probability could be compared. Physicians gave highly consistent estimates when asked to think about their past experiences in terms of event frequencies. However, those told to respond using single event probabilities or to use past experiences to predict prospective frequencies gave inconsistent Bayesian estimates. Thus, when making Bayesian judgments based on real life experience, natural frequency formats only lead to better judgments, compared with single event probability formats, if people think retrospectively, not when using past experiences to make prospective predictions. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Mutability and propensity in causal selection

We examined differences in causal ratings of 1 factor depending on the mutability (defined as the ease with which a factor can be imagined to be different) and causal propensity (defined as the likelihood that the event would occur in the presence of a factor) of another factor that conjoined to produce the event. In 3 studies, causal ratings of the target factor depended on the interaction of mutability and propensity of the other factor. When the other factor was high in mutability, ratings of the target decreased as the propensity of the contributing factor increased, but when the other was low in mutability, ratings of the target increased as the propensity of the contributing factor increased. Mediation analysis indicated that mutability and propensity affected causal ratings by determining the comparison against which the event was considered. Comparison judgments also mediated beliefs about which factor should have adjusted to the other.     

Relative and absolute duration judgments under prospective and retrospective paradigms

A dual-process contingency model of short duration judgment is proposed and tested. The first process, or P(t), is a timer that uses cognitive capacity to keep track of units of time. If capacity is directed toward other tasks, P(t) will record fewer units and produce lower time judgments than when capacity is not directed toward other tasks. This timing process is most likely to affect performance when people know in advance (prospective judgments) that time judgments will be required and when absolute, rather than relative, judgments are made. The second process, or P(m), which is used for retrospective and relative judgments, judges duration on the basis of the number of remembered high priority events (HPEs) occurring during the interval. When this process is used, time judgments increase with the amount of HPEs that can be retrieved at the moment of judgment. Two experiments are reported. Tactual stimuli were presented, and nontemporal information processing load (simple or complex stimuli), type of judgment (absolute or relative), and judgment paradigm (prospective or retrospective)were manipulated. The results obtained support the proposed dual-process contingency model.     

Another look at why people are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets

People are reluctant to exchange lottery tickets, a result that previous investigators have attributed to anticipated regret. The authors suggest that people's subjective likelihood judgments also make them disinclined to switch. Four studies examined likelihood judgments with respect to exchanged and retained lottery tickets and found that (a) exchanged tickets are judged more likely to win a lottery than are retained tickets and (b) exchanged tickets are judged more likely to win the more aversive it would be if the ticket did win. The authors provide evidence that this effect occurs because the act of imagining an exchanged ticket winning the lottery increases the belief that such an event is likely to occur.     

Decisions,actions, and the appropriateness of confidence in knowledge

This research examines the appropriateness of confidence (i.e., subjective probability judgments) in knowledge associated with decisions and actions of social importance. One hundred and thirty seven participants completed a 50 item questionnaire assessing their knowledge of the two leading candidates in the 1988 presidential election in the U.S.A. Ninety one of the respondents completed the questionnaire one week prior to the election, whereas the other 46 completed the questionnaire on election day shortly after voting. After each item in the questionnaire, all respondents indicated whether or not the item content represented a reason why they voted (or intended to vote) for or against the candidate to whom the item referred. Within-person results indicated that, in comparison to items that were not cited as reasons for voting intentions or voting behavior, items endorsed as reasons were characterized by better accuracy and resolution, but worse overconfidence. Between groups, decision makers were significantly more accurate and better calibrated than those who had not made a decision between the candidates. Implications of inappropriate confidence on decision making effectiveness are discussed.     

Cognitive Dissonance and Post-Decision Attitude Change in Six Presidential Elections

Data from the National Election Studies were examined in an effort to isolate cognitive dissonance of two kinds: dissonance arising from a behavioral commitment in the form of voting, and dissonance arising from inconsistencies associated with having supported the losing candidate. Feeling thermometer ratings of the two principal presidential candidates obtained before and immediately after six elections (1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996) were analyzed. Regression estimates supported a dissonance reduction explanation of observed attitude changes. Voters, as compared to nonvoters, tended to increase the evaluative distance between candidates after an election, whereas supporters of the losing candidate were more likely than supporters of the winning candidate to decrease such evaluative distances. An additional examination of voters yielded results consistent with dissonance theory: After the election, respondents reporting favorable evaluations of both candidates (a difficult choice) tended to spread comparative candidate evaluations compared to respondents who were favorable toward only one candidate (an easy choice). The results both support and cast doubt on prior studies.     

The contribution of judgment scale to the unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon: How evaluating others can exaggerate over- (and under-) confidence

The unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon occurs when low performers tend to overestimate their performance on a task, whereas high performers judge their performance more accurately (and sometimes underestimate it). In previous research, this phenomenon has been observed for a variety of cognitive tasks and judgment scales. However, the role of judgment scale in producing the unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon has not been systematically investigated. Thus, we present four studies in which all participants judged their performance on both a relative scale (percentile rank) and an absolute scale (number correct). The studies included a variety of performance tasks (general knowledge questions, math problems, introductory psychology questions, and logic questions) and test formats (multiple-choice, recall). Across all tasks and formats, the percentile-rank judgments were less accurate than the absolute judgments, particularly for low and high performers. Furthermore, in Studies 1–3, the absolute judgments were highly accurate, even when the percentile-rank judgments were not. Thus, differences in the accuracy of percentile-rank judgments across skill levels do not always represent differences in self-awareness, but rather they may arise from difficulties that performers have at evaluating how well others are performing. Most importantly, the unskilled-and-unaware phenomenon on a relative scale does not guarantee inaccurate self-evaluations of absolute performance.     

When Does Gender Count? Further Insights into Gender Schematic Processing of Female Candidates' Political Advertisements

In this study we explored viewers' responses to advertising by female political candidates. Gender schema theory provided the basis for developing a better understanding of the circumstances when voters evaluate female candidates and how cognitive representations of what women are like influence viewer responses. Results showed general support for the predictions derived from gender schema theory. That is, participants did seem to rely on gender schema in making judgments, a form of inference making known as “default processing,” when information was absent. Results also indicated that participants relied more on gender schematic processing when the advertisement elicited positive emotions and less on gender schematic processing when exposed to an attack ad. For comparison, viewers' responses to male candidates' political advertising were also examined. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of these findings for political campaigns.     

Are people excessive or judicious in their egocentrism? A modeling approach to understanding bias and accuracy in people's optimism

People are often egocentric when judging their likelihood of success in competitions, leading to overoptimism about winning when circumstances are generally easy and to overpessimism when the circumstances are difficult. Yet, egocentrism might be grounded in a rational tendency to favor highly reliable information (about the self) more so than less reliable information (about others). A general theory of probability called extended support theory was used to conceptualize and assess the role of egocentrism and its consequences for the accuracy of people's optimism in 3 competitions (Studies 1-3, respectively). Also, instructions were manipulated to test whether people who were urged to avoid egocentrism would show improved or worsened accuracy in their likelihood judgments. Egocentrism was found to have a potentially helpful effect on one form of accuracy, but people generally showed too much egocentrism. Debias instructions improved one form of accuracy but had no impact on another. The advantages of using the EST framework for studying optimism and other types of judgments (e.g., comparative ability judgments) are discussed.     

On splitting and merging categories: A regression account of subadditivity

Frequency judgments tend to be subadditive: A category’s frequency is judged to be lower than the summed frequency of its subcategories. Thus, by splitting or merging categories, subjective frequencies increase or decrease, respectively. We offer an account of this phenomenon that is based on the statistical principle of regression. Because empirical information is never noise-free, high frequencies are underestimated, and low frequencies are overestimated. The underlying regression principle explains available evidence on subadditivity and allows novel predictions. The findings from two experiments supported predictions derived from the regression account of frequency estimates for split and merged categories: Subadditivity varied systematically as a function of the two parameters determining regression (extremity and reliability). More extreme frequencies and reduced reliability led to increased regression effects. Theoretical implications for subadditive judgments (of frequency, probability, and/or value) are discussed. Although other factors may contribute to subadditivity, their influence needs to exceed the baseline expected from the regression model alone.     

Multiple study trials and judgments of learning

We compared judgments of learning (JOLs) that were made either (a) after 1 study trial, (b) 2 study trials, or (c) in-between the 1st and 2nd study trials. In regard to the absolute accuracy of JOLs at predicting subsequent recall, we replicated previous findings of an underconfidence-with-practice effect for immediate JOLs and report for the first time a new finding of an underconfidence-with-practice effect for delayed JOLs (i.e., delayed JOLs after one trial overestimated the likelihood of subsequent recall, whereas delayed JOLs after two trials underestimated that likelihood). Also, although delayed JOLs always had a greater relative accuracy than did immediate JOLs, the relative accuracy of immediate and delayed JOLs was approximately the same after 1 versus 2 study trials. These results demonstrate that additional study trials affect the absolute accuracy of all JOLs but not the relative accuracy of any JOLs. Thus an increase in the number of study trials produced an increasing bias to be underconfident about the subsequent likelihood of recall but did not affect people's ordering of which items had been more (versus less) well-learned.     

Predicting and postdicting the effects of word frequency on memory

In the experiments reported here, I replicate and extend recent results that reveal that judgments about the memorability of common and uncommon words differ qualitatively depending on whether they are made during study or elicited during a recognition test (Guttentag & Carroll, 1998). When assessing recognition ability for individual words, subjects predict superior performance for common words, but postdict better performance for uncommon words. This interaction suggests that subjects rely on different cues when making judgments during study than they do when making analogous judgments during the recognition test, and that the cues utilized during recognition lead judgments to be more accurate. The shift is then evident in later predictions Subjects who make postdictions consequently correctly predict superior recognition performance for uncommon words on a subsequent study list. When subjects are asked to make later predictions about recall performance, however, having made postdictions on a test of recognition does not mislead subjects into predicting superior recall performance for uncommon words.